GONE MISSING

Last seen in Oregon... Over two years ago

Last known whereabouts... In some silly small little dinky town in Texas

If found... Send them directly back to Oregon

Time to come HOME, guys!

*NEW* Caption Contest...

Okay, so I put a silly picture of Shauna up recently and asked for your captions. Fair is fair... so here's one of me with my dad.

Have at me... I'll post 'em all. As long as you keep it family fare.

It's OK to play with your food!

Leave it to Krista to find a way to making eating more fun! All you need is some bananas, grapes, blueberries, and a little imagination!

Note... we're still hoping to find a way to making vegetables more fun to eat.

Too Much of The Final Four!

Jason! It's OVER! Kansas wins in over-time... You can go to bed now. Carefully place the TV remote on the coffee table, fold up your blanky, take your empty chip bowl and pop cans to the kitchen and go to bed.

Good night my friend.

Happy Birthday Megan!!!

This little girl is a ray of sunshine... Yesterday she turned 8 years old. We celebrated by going out to eat, and then off to the Shrine Circus. Her BIG party will be next weekend... stay tuned for more highlights!

Megan, Happy Birthday sweetheart! We love you!

Indoor Rain?

Okay, so it really WAS raining... but I had to crack up when I looked over at Shauna holding the umbrella over her head... WHILE STILL INSIDE THE PARKING GARAGE! LOL

I Love Spring... really I do.

This really... truly... absolutely is my FAVORITE time of the year. But that first mowing is something I really DON'T look forward to. Living in Oregon for the past 8 years has been an education on yard maintainence. I'm a man who LOVES a nice thick, weed free, and green lawn. But here, we get so much rain we regularly find standing water in our yard. So the first mowing is like mud bogging. Oh, and you also have to find a weekend with a big enough window to mow in between the rain showers. Today, the lawn got mowed. It was sunny at the beginning, rained part way through, and then the sun came out again. Typical Oregon. Lawn mowing accomplished... and Shauna rejoices.

Time Stands Still

When I was much younger I was interested in photography (just in case the radio thing didn't work out) so I love my new camera that I bought last year. I hardly grab my old Pentax K1000 anymore... my trusty tried and true 100% manual 35mm workhorse I've had since my sophomore year at Meridian High School. There's something awesome about being able to instantly see if you've shot a decent picture with the new digital format. If its bad, no biggie... just delete it and try again till you get the shot you want.

Last Summer we vacationed in Boise. We usually make a trip there every year. While we were there, I took my new digital camera out for a spin. Here's some shots I took of the Augustana Chapel in Boise. This is where Immanuel Lutheran Church met before they built the newer, larger building they're in now next door. I used to love to just stand inside this building and imagine what it was like in the early 1900's when the building was new and Boise was much smaller. Construction was started in May of 1908 and was finally completed and dedicated in September of 1915. I used to go knock on the cornerstone and imagine what important stuff they may have put in there.

If you ever find yourself in Boise, head to the corner of 7th and Fort Streets and see it for yourself. It hasn't changed much over the nearly 100 years its been standing.

CAPTION CONTEST!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JASON

Its not often that God brings along a friend who becomes more like a brother. Jason is that kind of friend for me. Whether its taking our Miata's out on the back roads to tear it up a bit, watching LOST every Thursday night at 9pm, owning a small business together, starting a non-profit ministry together, looking to see if one or the other has forgotten to take their trash cans out Sunday night, to just sitting at our Coffee Bar and surfing YouTube after hours... I appreciate having him as a great friend who I can count on just being around. Of course, living across the street makes that even more convenient! You're a great encourager, Captain! Enjoy the ride as you Sail into your 37th year!

Happy birthday my good man! You may not have much hair left, but at least you'll NEVER have to worry about coloring out the gray! See ya at 9pm tomorrow for Lost!

You can learn more about my crazy friend by checking out his own blog. http://nussing.blogspot.com/

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Spring yet?

Oh man... Spring and warm weather can't get here soon enough!!! Recently, we had a warm weekend so my buddy Jason and I washed up our Miata's and took them out... even posing them for a few photos.

As long as the temperature is above 55 degrees with sunshine, you'll find the top down everytime!

Spring MUST be around the corner... this weekend is Daylight Savings Time, so don't forget to SPRING AHEAD one hour when you go to bed Saturday night. If you forget, you'll be an hour late for church!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SHAUNA!

Today is her big day... and the last time she can say she's still "30-Something"!

She's an incredible lady for sure. The above picture was taken on our honeymoon just over 18 years ago... this picture below was taken last week... on the same bridge, by the same lamp post. She's got the magic anti-aging gene. Cool, huh?

Happy birthday, my love. You brighten the world of everyone who has the honor to know you.

Vacation Digest

Vacation is almost over... for me. Vacation ended yesterday for the kids, but I knew that I'd need a "Disney Detox" day so here I am at home catching up on a number of things. The blog is one of the them.

Vacations are always fun to anticipate, fun to go on, and fun to be finished with. I don't think we would have done one more day as we were all just pooped out after the week. I mentioned in yesterdays post that there was good, and bad. We arrived late Saturday night with plans on hitting Epcot Sunday before checking in to the condo. Well... we got as far as this McDonalds parking lot. Megan suddenly felt sick, and threw up in the back seat of this brand new 4-Runner! It became the Toyota Barfmobile.

She assured us later that she felt ALL BETTER and really wanted to go to Epcot... so off we went. We got to Epcot and soon after, Megan was sick again... and we spent all of about 30 minutes at Epcot and called it a day. Good thing, too... Emily started throwing up that evening!

By Tuesday, SHAUNA was sick, and ended up going back to condo while I had a fun day... just me and my girls.

The only other bummer on the trip was the weather on Tuesday when tornado watches were issued throughout the area. While Shauna was sick in bed, she watched TV and kept me up to date on the weather. It moved in fast and by the time we were running for the car, the rain was SO HARD we were soaked all the way through... as if we had stood in our bathroom shower for 5 minutes!

Okay... enough of the "bad". The fun we had included having our friends the Cordova's from Boise meet us at Disney for the day on Tuesday. WHAT A BLAST! A former employee of ours from our coffee shop has been interning at Disney, so she met up with us on Saturday and spent the afternoon with us (Thanks Andrea!). Also, with the weather being just slightly less than ideal, the crowds were non-existant so there was virtually no waiting! Many times we'd just stay on the ride and do it again! The kids got to meet many of their favorite charters. We swam at the resort. We never got up super early. We just vacationed!

Here, Megan is being certified "Princess Of The Day" at Disney. She was able to pull the sword out of the stone... both big sisters were unable to. She felt pretty special!

Wednesday, the high temp was only 60, so I took the opportunity to sport my Boise State BLUE!

Another highlight was going to "The Holy Land Experience". http://www.theholylandexperience.com/ There we saw reinactments of Jesus' minitries, learned about the Dead Sea scrolls, and also witnessed the death and resurrection of Jesus. If you're ever in Orlando... GO!

Well there ya have it... Vacation Digest. If you have a weird desire to see more pictures, email me and let me know. I'll send you the link.

HOME AGAIN!

Well, obviously I didn't have internet available, and I was too lazy to go down to the McDonalds that offered free WiFi. C'mon, I was on vacation! It was an unforgetable week for good and bad... thankfully mostly GOOD! I'll try to get caught up Monday as I'm dead tired now. We had to wake up at 12:30am Portland time to catch our flight out of Florida.

Micky and Minnie send their love to you all.

Dave